Many prior art chutes are mounted at the rear or discharge end of a concrete mixer and are swingable laterally as well as upwardly, so as to direct ready mix concrete and the like wherever needed within a limited radius around the discharge end of a mixer truck or a transit concrete truck.
Such chutes are often made up of a series of telescopically fitted sections that are adapted to be contracted into a compact form so that, when mounted at the rear end of a transit mixer truck, the sections which are nested into one another and are well within the width of the transit mixer and do not extend beyond the sides thereof. When the sections are extended, they are capable of conveying the concrete discharged from the mixing drum to a substantial distance and within a convenient area.
However, it has been found that when the chute sections are very long, the cement does not seem to flow well due to undesirable suction forces that are created between the concrete and the smooth inner wall of the chute sections. Therefore, one object of the present invention is to provide a telescoping conveying chute assembly for transit concrete mixer, which can automatically expand to an appreciable distance from the mixer to quickly and effectively deposit the concrete mixture into many positions despite the substantial length of the chute sections.
The present invention is a telescopic chute assembly for discharging cementitious material from a discharge apparatus that has a rotatable storage drum. The chute assembly has a first chute section for receiving the material from the drum. The first chute section has a first outlet end. A second chute section extends longitudinally between a second inlet end and a second outlet end ea that the second inlet end may be slidably attached to the first outlet end of the first chute section to receive the cementitious material from the first chute section A third chute section may comprise a body of complemental cross-sectional shapes to the second chute section and may be of a larger size so as to telescopically slide over the second chute section and be movable to extend outwardly from the second chute section. Each of the first, second and third chute sections preferably comprises a plurality of aligned flat strips that are integrally buckled or attached to one another at an angle to form an elongate trough-shaped body. The angle promotes the formation of air bubbles between the chute sections to reduce any undesirable suction forces and to reduce the friction between the flowable cementitious material and the grooved inner surface of the chute sections.